Description:
Chinese export porcelain rectangular, 8-sided sauce tureen with a cover, two gilt rabbit or hare-head handles, and stand, decorated the arms of Marten impaling Bidwell in the Famille rose palette of iron red, blue, green, brown, black, rose, purple, and gilding. The Marten family descended from John Marten of Rowsham, Oxfordshire, living in 1550. In 1750, George Martin (spelling changed to Martin in the 18th century) married Deborah (d.1793), daughter of Hugh Bidwell who was a senior merchant in the East India Company and ordered this service. The cover, with its octagonal flared lip, has a molded gilt and iron-red floral knop over 2 Martin crests, "A martin passant proper" (holding a buckle) and 2 panels of flowering branches and pheasants on rocks. Both long sides of the tureen have the arms of Marten of Radford, Oxfordshire, ("Sable three round buckles or") impaling Bidwell of Thetford, Norfolk, ("Per saltire or and gules, four roundels each charged with a martlet all counter-changed"). The arms are flanked by four gilt-edged panels with elements of the Valentine pattern - the 'Altar of Love' (two flaming hearts on an altar, two doves billing on Cupid's quiver, wreath and side curtain) and 'Absent Master' (tree, wreath, dogs, sheep, shepherd's crook, pipes and hat), over a gilt, red-edged band around the bottom. The stand has two of those panels and birds int he center well. The Valentine pattern, a combination of pastoral, erotic, and exotic South Seas elements, was originally found on a 1743 dinner service made in Canton for Commodore George Anson (1697-1762). It was probably designed by then First Lieutenant Piercy Brett (1709-1781), Anson's official artist during his 1740-1744 circumnavigation; many of Brett's drawings were used as the basis for the engravings in "Anson's Voyages", published in 1748. 'Altar of Love' and 'Absent Master' were independent motifs, remembrances of home, first combined on the 1743 service. Two other scenes are known to have been used: 2 wolves (or dogs) approaching a cottage; and a cottage, woman spining, man, oxen, and bridge (see HD 60.168). The Reeves Center Collection has a circa 1785 plate with the same crest.
Subjects:
Pottery; Enamel and enameling; glaze (coating by location); polychrome; Porcelain Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+56.106.1 |
